The inventive concepts relate to a semiconductor device. More particularly, a variable resistance memory device, to a switching element of a variable resistance memory device, and to a method of manufacturing the switching element.
Generally, semiconductor memory devices may be classified as volatile memory devices and non-volatile memory devices. Volatile memory devices lose their stored data when their power supplies are interrupted. Volatile memory devices include dynamic random access memory (DRAM) devices and static random access memory (SRAM) devices. On the contrary, non-volatile memory devices retain their stored data even when their power supplies are interrupted. Non-volatile memory devices include programmable ROMs (PROMs), erasable PROMs (EPROMs), electrically EPROMs (EEPROMs), and flash memory devices.
In addition, next-generation semiconductor memory devices (e.g., ferroelectric random access memory (FRAM) devices, magnetic random access memory (MRAM) devices, and phase-change random access memory (PRAM) devices) have been developed to provide high-performance and low power consumption semiconductor memory devices. Materials of these next-generation semiconductor memory devices have resistance values that vary according to currents or voltages applied thereto and retain their resistance values even when currents or voltages are interrupted.